Model-Based Compositional Reasoning for Complex Systems of Systems

ABSTRACT: The proposed research will develop a technique to enable compositional reasoning about complex systems of systems. The core of the approach is to enhance a system modeling language with sufficient formalism to enable such reasoning at both the system and system-of-systems levels. The enhancements that will be developed are in three major areas: (1) a novel real-world type system and associated type-checking mechanism that will allow real-world attributes to be associated with the types of entities in system models, (2) rigorous specification of subsystem and system properties using pre- and post-conditions, (3) synthesis of system-of-system specifications from the specification of subsystem and system properties using specification-extraction technology, and (4) proofs of properties of system-of-system specifications using a theorem-proving system. BENEFIT: There is extensive potential for the application of the technology that will result from this research in many DoD and non-DoD applications. Complex systems of systems arise in many domains including: manned aircraft, unmanned air systems, medical devices, rail and other surface transport systems, nuclear power systems, weapons systems, and networked information systems. Development and demonstration of the technology within this project will provide an effective and efficient mechanism for reducing the risk of adoption of the technology in relevant domains. We will lever our relationships with industry and regulatory authorities to promote the application of the technology developed under the proposed effort by: (a) using the results developed under this effort as examples for others to examine, (b) adapting the results to illustrate the potential to engineers and managers who indicate interest in the technology, and (c) seeking development contracts to exploit the technology for new customers.